Fiesta [DVD] [1995]

This is a fine film, but the "aspect ratio" described in the product information is not strictly accurate.The film has been cramped to fit 4:3 screens. On a wide screen television this distorts the width of the picture.The rear of the DVD cover states that this is the "Letterbox version 4:3, produced to 1.35 aspect ratio (approx.)"Watching this film on a widescreen television is frustrating.

Very unusual take on the Spanish civil war and rather concentrated too much on the firing squad aspect of the film. The cinematography was very good and the atmosphere of the period excellent. However the storyline was a bit thin. Worth a watch though

I recently re watched this and it so impressed me that I felt I ought to share it. This is set in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Gregoire Colin plays the seventeen year old son of a senior Fascist Officer who is taken out of school in France to `volunteer' for the cause.In order to toughen him up for the front he is sent to work for a gay, martinet, Major played superbly by Jean-Loius Trintignant. He lives for war and his `luxuries' but has grown bored self deprecating and cynical as the years have ebbed away. Colin is sent to work and very quickly becomes efficient. There is a non love `love interest' in the form of some British aristo, who does seem to be there for no particular reason, except I felt to remind us that Brits fought on both sides not just for the Republicans.A word on the music, it sits awkwardly with the setting as it is mostly electronic which may have felt right in 1995 when this was made, but comes across as alienating.This is a 15 cert with a warning of `strong violence', I did not feel so and it is in French with reasonably good English sub titles. It was the language that I found off putting at first, but I soon got use to it and even with a run time of 104 minutes this did not drag. I would highly recommend to anyone who has an interest in this war or the psychological effects that war has on people.

It's the Spanish Civil War but the philosophy could apply to any war. Trintignant is brilliant as the Colonel whose cynicism is all on the surface and whose violence isjust below. It's a weird, unexpected character, the gay play mixed with the weariness, not with war, but with men. It took some time to dawn on me that there was a Jimmy Cagney struggling inside Trintignant, an updating of a Cagney simmering performance.It's absorbing,a tiny bit 'let's make all the right wingers look as though they're off their trolleys while all the Republicans are martyrs' but not overly so, because there's no real judgement to be made about the Civil War, but about you and me.The only dischordant note for me is the dischordant music, much of which seeming inappropriate and not needed (yep, and dischordant). And a female character thrown in because a female character had to be thrown in.Don't let that put you off. Great film.

This film shows us the Spanish Civil War from the side of the fascists, and their abject actions and summary executions make for unpleasant viewing. It uses a satirical tone that is quite original and well sustained, helped no end by the fantastic acting of Jean-Louis Trintignant. What an amazing screen presence he is - you'd have to give five stars for his performance which chillingly evokes the cruelty and self-regard of the character in a way that's quite hard to forget. In a sense, it's a brilliant use of acting, to place alongside Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List, in that it takes you right inside the mentality in a way a history book can't. Apparently based on a true story, it does show the character's gayness as very much part of his overall vanity, which I found unfortunate, if truthful in his case. The young men in the film are all physically attractive (Gregoire Colin, Marc Lavoine and Jean-Philippe Ecoffey) and show three types of male youth that might each be seen as appealing in themselves, taken out of the context; however this cannot make up for the lack of visual interest in the film. It all looks a bit flat, and the music is tedious, whether electronic or string-based. There is no real sense of using the medium of film as opposed to theatre, except that the shootings seem very realistic and therefore appropriately shocking. A much better film which deliberately shows you the wrong side in a war is Louis Malle's Lacombe Lucien, which again is unpleasant, but somehow Malle gets a lot of visual interest in the frame as well and the ambiguity in some of the characters makes this film by Pierre Boutron seem populated with cardboard cut-outs, except for Trintignant's character. In the end it's rather soulless, and Ken Loach's Land and Freedom, filmed around the same time, makes for much more pleasant viewing in its focus on the Republican side and particularly the Communist POUM offshoot.